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User blog:TheClydesdalePegasus149/My Thoughts on Discovery Family
Hey, everyone, so if you happened to be in the loop right now, then you're already aware that "Zak Storm: Super Pirate" will officially premiere this Saturday for sure. If you don't, then it's alright. So, finally after weeks of craziness because of the show being delay on September 16, it will finally air in the US for the first time on Discovery Family. If you don't know what's that, then you should know that it's the channel where the still-popular My Little Pony Friendship is Magic is still airing in the US. And from my experience of watching Discovery Family prior to becoming a staff for the Miraculous Ladybug wiki, I thought I decided to give you some tips and information about the channel that I'm sure not all of you didn't know. Because I got to admit, I'm very impressed that a channel like that have acquired the rights to air a show that's made from a studio that's still new to animate CGI superheroes. So here we go: History The most important thing about Discovery Family is to understand its history. In order to know why the channel have acquired the rights to Zak Storm, you need to understand the creation of the channel's second era known as "The Hub/Hub Network" era. Prior to the name "Discovery Family", the channel was originally call "Discovery Kids" and later "The Hub/Hub Network". "The "Hub" era was start because of a joint venture between Discovery Communication (60% owned) and the toy company Hasbro (40% owned). Under the arrangement, Discovery is in charge of handling advertising sales and distribution for the new channel, while Hasbro is involved in acquiring and producing programming. It's the reason why the network have original programs based off Hasbro-owned franchises such as G.I. Joe, My Little Pony, Transformers, and game shows adapted from its board game brands. For animated programs, most of the original shows that are currently airing are created from Hasbro Studios (MLP, Littlest Pet Shop, Pound Puppies, Transformer, etc). while the current acquired shows are animated in CGI from other studios (such as Strawberry Shortcake and Robin Hood: Mischief in Sherwood). Connections with Hasbro And because Hasbro is a toy company, it seems that the reason why Zak Storm will premiere on Discovery Family is because of its toys and merchandise. And since the Zak Storm app will be coming sometime either this month or next month, the toys and merchandise that're made from Bandai will arrive as well because of the app. There's a code on each toy that you must scan from the app to unlock special powerups for the game. (Wow, I wonder why that's seems familiar? Oh yeah, LPS, MLP, and MLPEG had the same technique for their toys for their app too) And as seen from the trailer, you can also earn more rewards by syncing the app with the episodes that have aired on TV. So perhaps the whole reason Discovery Family decided to do this is because of the toys and merchandise. I mean, come on it's obvious for those who're fans of any Hasbro-related shows to have a merchandise tied-in for the shows. What you'll expect Advertisement Because Discovery Family is a channel that's for the whole family (duh), you'll not going to expect Zak Storm to be advertised a lot in that channel. Similar to MLP recently, there'll be only one promo released every Saturdays to let the viewers know that the new episodes be coming at the following Saturday. Thursdays are always the day that Discovery Family's social media will upload the promos for the new episodes of their Daytime Programming show. Reruns Unfortunately because Zak Storm is an acquired show, you'll not going to see any reruns on the weekdays at all. Instead the time slot will be for rerunning episodes of Pound Puppies, another Hasbro-owned show, from Mondays to Fridays. Acquired shows vs Hasbro-owned shows Despite the acquired shows have little airing times on the weekends because of the Hasbro-owned shows, Strawberry Shortcake is an unexceptional because of their toy lines were previously own by Hasbro. And due to Hasbro owning 40% of the channel, you'll see a lot of Hasbro stuff every morning on both weekdays and weekends. The reason why every Hasbro shows except MLP do reruns is because of their popularity during the "Hub" era. And since Zak Storm will air this Saturday for sure, let's hope the scheduling department learn their lesson on rerunning the Hasbro-owned shows and let the underrated shows have more air times in the morning. Hiatus UPDATE: 10/31/17: That's right, everybody, since Zak Storm will have a total of 39 half-hour episodes for its first season, you'll going to expect there'll be hiatuses from time-to-time. But don't worry, hiatuses on Discovery Family can last for about one-to-four months. Recently I checked the press release website for any more news about the episodes and I saw that the December 2017 highlights was suddenly added there. And if you scroll down, you'll see that "Lemuria Attacks" and "Mutiny on the Demoniac" are both going to air on December 23, 2017. This is a sign because recently Hasbro-owned shows like MLP and LPS will have their hiatus start when they reach their 13th (but sometimes either 11th or 12th) episode in one of their then-current season. And even though Zak Storm is an acquired show, it'll follow the trend as well. So after December 23, 2017, the show will be taking its short break for a while until maybe before March it'll return on Discovery Family. And if the show do get back on the air, I'm pretty sure that episodes 14 and 15 will both air together as a mid-season premiere, just like they did recently for Season 7 of MLP. So, yeah, 39 episodes will be equal to two hiatuses total for Season 1. I can handle that. Category:Blog posts